


Echoes

by leiascully



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s07e05 The Angels Take Manhattan, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-02
Updated: 2013-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-25 08:51:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/951122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>River comforts the Doctor, who is grieving for the Ponds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: post-"The Angels Take Manhattan"  
> A/N: For a tumblr anon who wanted River comforting the Doctor and an older Doctor comforting River.  
> Disclaimer: _Doctor Who_ and all related characters are the property of Russell T. Davies, Stephen Moffat, and BBC. No profit is made from this work and no infringement is intended.

There’s a knock at the TARDIS door, which is odd. The Doctor opens it and River steps through. 

"Hello, sweetie," she says, and something in her voice tells him that she knows.

"I lost them," he says, the words rasping past the lump of sorrow that seems permanently lodged in his throat.

"They chose," she tells him. "Amy chose. Together was better. It wasn’t your fault."

"And you didn’t stay with me," he says.

"Oh, my love, I couldn’t," she says. "It could never be forever and always for us, galloping through space and time hand in hand. I don’t believe the universe could bear it."

"I could have borne it a little longer," he tells her. "The universe would have endured."

She gazes at him, her eyes deep with grief. She has a few new creases at the corners of her eyes and her mouth and he wonders where she is. Where they are. What they are. Then she opens her arms and he stumbles into them, and she wraps him up in the strength of her embrace. He lets his forehead fall to her shoulder. He is crying, almost without realizing it, and his tears soak into the shoulder of her dress. River holds him, stroking his back. They don’t often do this, he thinks; they don’t often have the leisure to embrace, or the need for this particular comfort, but he didn’t know how badly he craved her touch until now. He has been alone the past few weeks, having left her at her university, listening to the echoes of Amy and Rory’s lives, thinking of their shared gravestone and the way Amy reached after Rory, reached for the angel that meant the end of all they had shared.

River holds him for a long time.

"I’m sorry," he says at last, sniffling. He digs a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes at his face. River brushes back his hair. 

"Only returning the favor, my love," she tells him. 

"What favor?" he asks, too distracted to worry about foreknowledge.

"You came to me," she says compassionately. She keeps one hand on him, reassuring and unobtrusive. "You held me all night while I wept and wept. You were older. Sadder. You wouldn’t tell me where you’d come from. But you held me, and you listened as I told you all the stories of how we grew up together, my parents and I. Oh, the adventures we had, spinning out the tales of the Doctor and the blue police box."

"Something to look forward to," he says, and tries to smile. "River. I’m so, so sorry. I can’t even imagine the loss of them from your perspective."

"Now, Doctor, our burdens are heavy enough for our own shoulders," she says, and her words are gentle. "There’s no use measuring one against the other. Your grief is yours and my grief is mine. That’s the value of it. That’s the ache of it. And remember, my love: you are forgiven, always and completely."

"Thank you," he says quietly after a moment. "Will you stay?"

"A little while," she says, and pulls his head back down to her shoulder. 

"Not longer?" he asks.

"Oh, my Doctor," she says. "You and I both know that forever could never be long enough."

"If only destiny didn’t take its own time," he says, and she kisses him very softly.


End file.
